Luke immediately took a bath and changed into comfortable clothes after returning from the museum, then climbed onto his bed and took out the laptop that Yerna had given him.
‘Alright, the magic hasn’t worn off completely.’
When he turned it on, a white light quickly emanated, and a flat illusion appeared on the thinly spread IS panel.
The image created by the illusion magic was a ‘search bar.’
Luke didn’t completely trust the ‘search’ function as he did before, but he didn’t disregard it entirely either.
In cases where there’s no one around to ask a typical question, the search bar can be quite a decent mentor.
Of course, there’s no need to trust it completely.
For instance, it feels somewhat like rumors floating around in a pub—some information is accurate, some is completely fabricated, and some is partly true but exaggerated.
However, as he gradually became accustomed to modern civilization, he was slowly getting a sense of which pieces of writing are more reliable.
In other words, after spending a long time frequenting pubs, he felt he was getting to know which people primarily tell the truth and which ones mostly tell lies.
The best information source, for now, was the place called the ‘Akashic Records.’
The search results from there often yielded precise definitions, much like looking up in a dictionary.
For example, something like this:
What is known today as IS panel is actually the ‘Illusion Scroll.’
A flat scroll that can capture rich colors and expressions with the best cost-performance ratio according to current standards.
It is mainly used for computer screens or TVs.
…It was a place that listed only accurate facts.
Moreover, this information proved to be quite accurate when cross-verified in other search bars.
Luke promptly opened the search bar and began typing in the words he was curious about.
Thud, plunk, thud.
– Moonstone –
A stone refined from lunar fragments.
It is a top-grade magical stone and is particularly excellent for containing lunar magic, so it is mainly used in the cutting industry.
Some top-grade staffs even use a minuscule amount of it.
A brief explanation about Moonstone.
Well, even in ancient times, just embedding Moonstone into a magic sword would greatly enhance its sharpness.
Thus, it seems that even in this era, Moonstone is commonly used in industries to cut things.
‘Hmm, I see. If all the blacksmiths were handed Moonstone magic swords, it makes sense that the incredibly delicate craftsmanship of this age is plausible.’
Thinking that he had gained more knowledge, he began to scroll down the screen.
Swish, swish.
As Luke was skimming through the words on the screen, he suddenly stopped at one sentence.
– Price of Moonstone –
Generally, Moonstone costs around 2 to 4 million gil per gram, but if it contains lunar magic, it ranges from 30 to 40 million gil per gram based on its concentration, considering top-grade quality.
“……30 million per gram?”
Luke frowned in disbelief.
Compared to the past when it was impossible to mine Moonstone directly from the moon, it was definitely cheaper now.
However, even so, that doesn’t mean it is cheap from Luke’s perspective.
“……Sigh.”
He suspected it would be expensive, but he didn’t expect it to be this much.
In modern times, when people could be sent to the moon to mine Moonstone directly, it seems rather naive to think it wouldn’t be that expensive.
‘To refine a shadow of the moon, at least 10 grams of Moonstone would be needed…’
That would amount to at least 300 to 400 million gil.
But honestly, he couldn’t guarantee whether he could create a shadow of the moon with just 10 grams of top-grade Moonstone.
If he were to overestimate, he would need twice that amount of Moonstone.
That would raise the price to 600 to 800 million gil.
“……”
Luke shook his head with a serious expression.
600 million—wouldn’t that be enough to ride a bus 1.2 million times?
If he took the bus twice a day, that would mean an overwhelming number of rides over 1,643 years.
So how much would that be in terms of canned goods?
If he considered the often-eaten 1,600-gil canned goods, he could buy 375,000 cans, enough to sustain himself for 171 years, even if he ate six cans a day.
Of course, Moonstone holds value beyond that.
Assuming that his dimensional space still exists, that figure is genuinely minuscule.
As long as the dimension remains intact.
If he could go into debt and somehow obtain Moonstone to take out the internal resources to repay, that would be just fine.
However.
Luke could not be optimistic that his dimensional space still existed.
What if he went into debt to obtain Moonstone, but the resources to repay that debt had become lost within the dimension?
Alternatively, what if, although he didn’t recall, the ‘Great Luke Illuci’ had already transferred his resources to another space?
Even if he went out every day to earn money by playing the cello, the amount he might accumulate would vary greatly, given the nature of street performances.
If he was lucky, he might earn over 2 million gil at once, but the average he had earned from performances was about 200,000 gil a day.
That means he would need to perform on the street every single day for about 3,000 days.
Even if he started now, that equates to roughly 10 years.
Honestly, given that amount of time, it would be much faster to accumulate magic and elevate his circle directly rather than to open dimensions.
At that moment, Py was simply frowning at the unintelligible characters displayed on the computer screen.
– Three… Ten, ten, ten, ten, ten? Ehh, how do you read this?
Luke casually glanced away from the screen and met Py’s innocent gaze.
Speaking of which, Py didn’t know what ‘Moonstone’ meant either, nor did he truly comprehend numbers over ten.
He could barely tell the time by glancing at the clock.
So, the number 30 million was utterly beyond his understanding.
“Moonstone costs 30 million gil.”
– 30 million? What is that?
“When ten accumulates, it becomes a hundred, when a hundred accumulates, it becomes a thousand, and when a thousand accumulates, it becomes ten thousand. Ten million means ten of a thousand. Do you understand?”
– I don’t get it!
“……Is that so.”
Well, there was no need for a spirit to fully comprehend concepts created by humans.
—————–
Thus, Luke left the thought of Moonstone behind and turned on a video of a cat playing with a toy, watching it with Py.
The sight of the cat struggling to grab a feathered stick was just cute to look at, and watching it made him feel like the cat was instinctively expressing desires that resided within him, somewhat satisfying his own yearnings, so he often searched for such videos.
Of course, the best would be to play with toys directly, but honestly, there are times when even playing with toys can be exhausting.
Today was one of those days.
That said, he wasn’t physically tired, but mentally feeling drained, so it wasn’t much different.
‘Moonstone…’
It was at that moment.
“Luke, are you still watching cat videos?”
Mary, who had briefly gone out to play with a friend in the next room, returned and asked.
“Um, as you can see. Yes, I am.”
Then, Mary put on a mock angry expression and said.
“Seriously, why didn’t you answer the phone!”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear it. But what’s going on?”
Only then did Luke take his eyes off the computer screen to look at Mary.
Mary quickly dropped her angry facade and said.
“We’re going to tell scary stories in the next room, and I wanted to see if you would join us.”
“Scary stories? Weren’t you not so fond of scary stories?”
“Hmm, if I had to say, I don’t particularly like them… but they’re fun!”
“Hoho.”
This thought crossed Luke’s mind again—he couldn’t understand why people found scary things to be enjoyable.
Wouldn’t a child prefer to see only pleasant things?
When it came to scary stories, there was nothing he wished to share.
There were only tales of ogres slaughtering villagers from the neighboring town in ancient times, which were seen as terrifying and dreadful.
But he certainly couldn’t tell those stories in front of children, could he?
Moreover, it wasn’t an interesting story either.
Luke thought this was probably due to the improved living conditions in the world and turned back to the screen.
“Sorry, but I don’t have any stories to share.”
“Then just come and play with us! Even if you have no stories, you can just listen!”
“……”
“Hmm? Everyone else also wants to play with you.”
“……”
“Please, just once!”
Luke began to soften his resolve as Mary persistently encouraged him.
Look at that sparkling gaze of hers; how could he coldly reject it?
Well, maybe it would indeed be better to forget about Moonstone by joining them.
Eventually, Luke closed the computer screen and got up.
“Okay, I’ll come along.”
——-
As he entered the next room, the kids greeted him with cheers as if they had been waiting.
“Wow! It’s Luke!”
“Hello!”
“This is the first time seeing you like this!”
“Come sit here quickly!”
“Hmm, it’s nice to see you all.”
However, Luke, who never expected such a warm welcome, felt slightly flustered.
It was understandable; apart from Mary, he didn’t have deep relationships with anyone else there, and he seldom came to school, so there hadn’t been many opportunities to bond.
After all, intimacy develops through frequent interactions.
So, he questioned why he was receiving such applause, just then someone spoke up.
“The cookies you handed out before were delicious!”
“The bread too!”
“Haha, yes. It seems everyone enjoyed them.”
Indeed, his earlier gestures of sharing bread and cookies appeared to have made a good impression on the kids.
So, reasoning that there was no real reason to reject their kind intentions, he settled onto a cushion and curled his tail up over his knees.
Seeing that Luke had found his position, one of the kids turned off the light to enhance the mood, but with Luke’s improved night vision, the room remained well-lit enough that he didn’t feel any particular change in ambiance.
This must have been similar for the cat-human child sitting across from him.
Yet, it seemed that nobody spoke up about it, so it appeared more like a kind of ritual rather than just switching off the light.
As the room fell into a momentary stillness, Luke opened his mouth first.
“What were you all talking about?”
To be honest, Luke had begun to get curious about what kind of scary stories children could possibly share.
At that, Mary spoke up with an overly dramatic voice.
“Luke, do you know the ghost stories of our Academy dormitory?”
“The ghost stories of the Academy dormitory? Well…”
Luke had no way of knowing.
He didn’t visit the Academy often and had never used the dormitory in the first place.
“I figured you wouldn’t know, then I’ll explain it.”
Mary inhaled deeply before exhaling loudly to release her tension.
Just like first impressions are important, the opening lines of a story are crucial, so she had to be tense.
“On a night after midnight, a child was walking down the hallway…”
